Philosophy & Creativity

I wish to consider the extent to which creative practice is philosophical in nature. As Deleuze notes, such a question is not a beginning. Indeed, my own thinking on this subject starts fairly close to a conclusion: that creative practice is at once entirely philosophical and less than that. That is, creativity embraces the initial part of any philosophical enquiry, namely the deconstruction of one’s thinking.

Even before Socrates, but certainly after him, it has been a consistent refrain of the philosopher to deconstruct her thinking, and the thinking of others, concerning a certain topic—to start with a popular hypothesis concerning, say, the nature of ‘truth’ and then to go on to show that it is misconceived. Typically, but by no means ‘necessarily’, this involves subjecting the hypothesis to more (or at least no less) reasonable alternatives. In so doing, the philosopher shatters the illusion of certainty by disclosing the underlying ‘dogma’. Famously, the end goal of this Socratic method is aporia, which is to say an impasse, or dead end. The advantage of a dead end being that, with nowhere left to go, one cannot go in the wrong direction. 

One reaches this impasse by ruling out every other direction one might possibly go, which presumes that one has considered all available options. Accordingly, the Socratic method is a demanding one in terms of time and conscious effort. It is worth bearing in mind that, if Socrates has stopped you from walking down your chosen path and has succeeded in getting you to think about all other pathways you might have chosen, you are already going nowhere. Arguably, then, the method is perfectly suited to the intended aims. 

On the other hand, it may still be unclear from this example how the Socratic method can be used as a suitable model for creative practice. The creative has places to be—unlike the philosopher perhaps. It is not obvious that leaving your options open is what creativity is all about. Far from it. A stultifying procrastination is the creative’s worst enemy. 

However, this would be to assume wrongly, that in attaining aporia one can do nothing at all. Rather it is that one can do nothing right—or rather that one cannot know that the path chosen is the right path. In other words, one does not lose the ability to go in a given direction, but merely the dogmatic assumption that the direction of travel is a “given”. For similar reasons, then, the creative too must challenge her preconceptions about a particular project. This needn’t involve a rigorous or systematic critical analysis. Although it might. But it may be enough to try to ‘see the familiar as strange and the strange as familiar’. What is shattered in this case is a feeling of familiarity, of comfort, rather than certainty. Thus, creative practice remains philosophical insofar as it is anti-dogmatic.